Citizen science

Citizen science (similar to community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, participatory monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted with participation from the general public (who are sometimes referred to as amateur/nonprofessional scientists). There are variations in the exact definition of citizen science, with different individuals and organizations having their own specific interpretations of what citizen science encompasses. Citizen science is used in a wide range of areas of study, with most citizen science research publications being in the fields of biology and conservation. There are different applications and functions of citizen science in research projects. Citizen science can be used as a methodology where public volunteers help in collecting and classifying data, improving the scientific community's capacity. Citiz

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (19)

Related publications

Related people (4)

Related people

Related units (2)

Related units

Related concepts (29)

Related concepts

Related courses (10)

Related courses

Related lectures (19)

Related lectures

Pollution

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioact

Biodiversity

Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (genetic variability), species (species diversity), and ec

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporar

MGT-409: D. Thinking: real problems, human-focused solutions

This course aims to engage students into multidisciplinary collaboration to tackle real world problems with a human centered approach. It will also provide knowledge about the role of design in innovation.

DH-500: Computational Social Media

The course integrates concepts from media studies, machine learning, multimedia and network science to characterize social practices and analyze content in sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Students will learn computational methods to infer individual and networked phenomena in social media.

PHYS-402: Astrophysics IV : observational cosmology

Cosmology is the study of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. This course describes the principal themes of cosmology, as seen from the point of view of observations.

Characterizing Swiss Alpine Lakes: from Wikipedia to Citizen Science

Yuanhui Lin

In Switzerland, there are more than 1500 lakes located above 2000 meters of altitude. In order to understand the ecological impacts of climate change on bacteria communities in these high mountain lakes, researchers in project 2000Lakes analyze their chemistry and biology. Within the scope of this citizen science project, an educational platform has been created using the data mainly collected from Wikipedia and from the research results. By presenting Swiss alpine lakes and the 2000Lakes project in an interactive way, the goal of this platform is to raise interest and promote awareness about Swiss alpine lakes to the public, and ultimately, to conserve these ecosystems by joining forces with local citizens. Volunteers are invited to answer a survey that contains a list of questions regarding Swiss alpine lakes, whose answer can be found on the platform, and a list of usability questions, to which volunteers answer based on their own interact experience with the platform. The results of this survey are used to evaluate the effectiveness of this platform. Even though the general feedback is positive, some possible improvements are identified and hoped to be implemented in the future.

2022

"Citizen Science"? Rethinking Science and Public Participation

Jérôme Baudry

Since the late twentieth century, “citizen science” has become an increasingly fashionable label for a growing number of participatory research activities. This paper situates the origins and rise of the term “citizen science” and offers a new framework to better understand the diversity of epistemic practices involved in these participatory projects. It contextualizes “citizen science” within the broader history of public participation in science and analyzes critically the current promises—democratization, education, discoveries—emerging within the “citizen science” discourse. Finally, it maps a number of historical, political, and social questions for future research in the critical studies of “citizen science.”

2019

Science, Democracy, and the Pursuit of Aliens

Jérôme Baudry

In 1902, a contributor to Popular Science affirmed that “The era of the amateur scientist is passing; science must now be advanced by the professional expert.” Throughout the twentieth century, amateurs have been increasingly excluded from the production of scientific knowledge. But since the 1990s, under the banner of “citizen science”, a growing number of initiatives have involved, once again, amateurs in science, with the goal of democratizing science, promoting scientific literacy, and solving big data problems. The creation of SETI@home at UC Berkeley in 1998 embodied all these aims. Within six month, it had attracted more than one million participants analyzing radio signals from space on their personal computer searching for signs of extraterrestrial life. The initiators of the project and the media constructed the image of the participant along the lines of an imagined amateur scientist making discoveries outside of scientific institutions, while contributing to the making of a global scientific citizenship. Infused by libertarian, countercultural, and cyber-utopian ideals, SETI@home seemed to capture the scientific aspirations of a new generation. But the tens of thousands of online biographical sketches left by the participants present a more nuanced picture. These traces offer a unique window into the self-fashioning of the participants into different kinds of “amateurs”, “volunteers”, and “hobbyists” with various views about professional science and its place in society. These sources helps us better understand the recent reconfigurations of the amateur scientist and, more generally, the struggles over the legitimacy of professional expertise.

2019